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NeoNote — Let's discuss guns

If we're going to have a conversation, these facts must be a part of that.

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Feminists never notice

Feminists never notice crimes like this, because “violence against women” doesn’t matter when it’s committed by Third World men.
— Robert Stacy McCain, Death by Tourism
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“CBS STOKES Political Division: The Good Fight”

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Signs of liberal privilege



Excerpted from Seven Signs of Liberal Privilege by Timothy Daughtry.
  1. Assuming that you have the right to control what everyone else does, what they have, what they say, and how they think.

  2. Assuming that you have the right never to hear any opinion that contradicts your own, and using intimidation and violence if necessary to protect your ideological bubble.

  3. Assuming that feeling offended on your part constitutes a political crisis on the nation’s part.

  4. Having exquisite sensitivity to the moral speck in society’s eye while ignoring the beam in your own.

  5. Consistency is for other people.

  6. You must be judged only by your rhetoric and not by your results.

  7. And finally, liberal privilege means never having to say “not guilty.”
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Monday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Oversize Monday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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All things being equal, the side that can't stand dissent is usually wrong.

I've said it before.

Many many, times.

It doesn't stop it from being true.

I'm not fond of the Republicans or the Democrats. But right now, the Republicans aren't demanding that we break the system and submit to their demands.

So here it is, plain and simple.

If you advocate violence, if you aren't willing to work within the system, you aren't entitled. You don't get respect unless you are willing to give respect.

I don't care what you feel. I don't care how right you believe you are. No one person has all the answers. No group has all the solutions.

And NO ONE has the right to impose their views by force. We agree on the rules or we have nothing.

There's no reason to respect you unless you respect others.

Even the ones you disagree with.

Pinned to the top until further notice.

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Wednesday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry


Study: Economic Boom Largely Ignored as TV's Trump Coverage Hits 92% Negative



The First Amendment protects your right to not be a rat.



Two Students Hooked Up. It Was Clearly Consensual. He Still Spent $12,000 Defending Himself.



With corruption like this, it’s no wonder so many pension funds are insolvent



Antifa Arsonists Vandalize Pro-Trump Truck — THEN TORCH IT (Video)



Antifa Shut Down Major Intersection, Threaten Citizens with Violence If They Don’t Obey



Pennsylvania's Libertarian Senate Candidate Gets Invited, Then Snubbed From Televised Debate



Fearmongering Article Falsely Claims 'Halloween Is Christmas for Sex Offenders'



Data Showing Navy's Poor Aviation Safety Record Disappears From Website



Sex Workers Pioneered the Early Internet—and It Screwed Them Over



That sign telling you how fast you’re driving may be spying on you



A Florida Man Faces Prison for Making Grills Without a License



What Seems To Be Going on At @Tesla, and The Risks Of Buying (and Shorting) $TSLA Stock


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Government is a non-producer

Government is a non-producer; like any parasite it is wholly dependent on its host for sustenance. And so the only way it can accomplish anything is to force others to do it by the threat of violence.
     — Maggie McNeill, The Gun in the Room

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Inferior

The countries Trump meant are not inferior to enlightened Western democracies because of the color of their populace, but because of the corruption and oppression of their kleptocratic governments that keep the proles in poverty, ignorance, and fear; their religions that teach violence or passive resignation; and their cultures that oppress women, devalue learning, promote superstition, and don’t inculcate the upwardly mobile virtues, because few can move up.
     — Myron Magnet, Cut the C-Rap
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Wednesday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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More from the stack

New Segregation Signs Pop Up in Leftist Establishments

Perpetuating racism in the name of freedom

Border Agents Seized American Citizen's Truck, Never Charged Him With A Crime

"You have no rights here"

The Senate Is Close To Undermining The Internet By Pretending To 'Protect' The Children

Justifying tyranny

We Didn't Normalize Trump. We Normalized the Left's Violence.

All other things being equal, the side that can't stand dissent is wrong.

Exclusive: US government wiretapped former Trump campaign chairman

So why isn't Obama called to account for this?

I moved from a blue state to a red state and it changed my life

"As I got to know my new Midwest home, I realize how living in a bubble and subscribing to the Middle America stereotypes is truly damaging to this country."

To Combat "Hate," Make Government Weaker

Worth thinking about

James Comey Tried to Discredit Trump’s Wiretapping Assertions That Proved True

Why isn't this man in jail?

Entire Volume of CIA Files On Lee Harvey Oswald, Set to Be Released in October, Has “Gone Missing”

Somebody is still hiding truth.

The Silencing of Dissent

A paranoid take that may be true

Trump: “Venezuela Has FAITHFULLY Implemented Socialism…” The UN Goes SILENT!

Trump is right on this

Hours After Hurricane Irma, Miami-Dade County Tickets Residents for Code Violations

You'd think there would be other priorities. You'd be wrong.

File a FOIA, Get Sued

Why do you want to know, Citizen?

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More clearing out the stack

Older headlines that don't merit their own entry

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“Why Are There So Many Mass Shootings Today?”

This was FDR's State of the Union address in January, 1941. It was another speech that changed everything.

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Super oversized roundup - clearing out the old stack

Older headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Mirror image

“How ‘Antifa’ Mirrors the ‘Alt-Right’”

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NeoNotes — Racism in response to oppression

My critique wasn't intended to capture the movement.

In the various moments however, I see one group excuse their violence and their racism because of their narrative. This one group gets a pass but others do not. That's certainly privilege and it hurts their case.

I've told people before. You want equality, I'll fight with you. You want privilege, I'll fight against you.

I can't take BLC BLM seriously when I read or hear the trash-talk some of the leadership directs at "whites." I'm not the only one. I'm against injustice, I don't think BLC BLM is.

You know the really ironic thing about this conversation? The motto of my political blog Pagan Vigil is "Because LIBERTY demands more than just black and white."



If group A gets something and groups B, C, and E are not allowed, that's a privilege. If things change and group B gets something and groups A, C, E, and H are not allowed, there is still privilege.

The definition of oppression keeps changing. Arguably things were worse for "blacks" in the 1920s after Woodrow Wilson re-segregated the civil service and the military. Not to mention all the Jim Crow laws that were still on the books. While there are issues today, they are no where near what they once were.

One of the biggest issues today is the prison population. This is usually one key argument about how the US is still a racist society. Before we can really look at that though, we should consider if there are some laws that in and of themselves might be unjust. Personally I think it's stupid to arrest people for being under the influence but not arresting people for being drunk. So if we take out all non-violent drug offenders, that reduces the prison population quite a bit. We're left with the violent offenders.

We know that a strong family, especially one with at least two parents, usually means the kids don't break the law. We also know that "black" inner city children in single mother households used to be about 7%, at one point that rose to well over 70% and is still a majority today. We know that this was made possible by well meaning government programs meant to provide. In other words, "the Man" paid single mothers not to get married and raise kids on their own. Yet any talk of reducing these benefits is immediately called racism. It's privilege, it promotes dependency, and yet it's seen as "compassionate." There's racism and oppression for you, but in popular opinion it's a "right." That doesn't mean that single mothers are evil or wrong. It just means that when a majority of households in a given population are single mothers, the kids (and especially the males) are much more likely to push the boundaries and get into trouble.

These aren't the only two things that put more "blacks" in prison, but they are two of the biggest. Yet instead, we hear how cops are racist. These are also two things that would take years, maybe decades to fix.

There are many other things too. Inner city public schools which are more and more like prisons. Public housing projects that displace neighborhoods and quickly become crime infested. Licensing laws that make it almost impossible for small household businesses to get started. These are real oppressions with absolutely devastating results, and yet we're arguing over who gets a slice of the pie. The oppressed demand action from the government and the institutions that are keeping them down. Star Parker does a much better job explaining this is her book Uncle Sam's Plantation: How Big Government Enslaves America's Poor and What We Can Do About It.

Maybe the pie isn't limited. And maybe the person on the street isn't the oppressor.



Peer review? Then the next question will be if the correct peers reviewed it. And that still doesn't answer the real question: Is Star Parker wrong with either her observations or her conclusions?

Look at what happened here. In one reply you've moved from Black Lives Matter to certain Black Lives Matter more than the ones who have not been politically approved. It's Orwell. “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”

What critical race theory doesn't tell you is the how and why of institutions, particularly those created to fight one cause or another.

I'm not going to assume the collective guilt. That's not my style, and that's not the way to fix racism.



Critical race theory isn't a part of sociology, it rejects much of sociology. It was designed as a political tool to silence dissent from an approved ideology.

I am not discounting peer review which can be a valuable tool. I just do not think that it should be the only tool, nor do I think that the only certain people should be allowed to do peer review.

I've run into abuse of the latter kind in third wave feminism "scholarship" where ideas aren't even considered for discussion unless the author has been approved.

Those are Star Parker's beliefs, she still has the right to write and talk about them. But she isn't hitting people if they disagree with her.

I was trying to find a quote from Thomas Sowell on critical race theory, but I can't seem to find it.



How widespread is critical race theory outside those who study it? Can it produce predictable models of human behavior? How well does it withstand analysis outside the discipline? These are some of the things that mark a science. At one point I was studying to be a Christian minister, that doesn't make Christianity true. These same things could be said about third wave feminism too. Even more in the case of third wave feminism, how well does it tolerate behavior that goes against what it teaches.

But the people in BLM who aren't hitting people aren't denouncing the people in BLM who are. And there have been pages and pages written about how the leaders of BLM are justified in their racism against "whites" with no one calling them on it.

If BLM is going to denounce the neo-Nazis for being racist and violent, shouldn't they be held to the same standard?



We let generations be victims when they deserved to be heroes.



You seem to want understanding and validation for your sexuality. You won't get that from me. But if you want the right to make your own choices as long as you accept responsibility for those choices, count me in.

Which is more important?

I don't care about BLM's "cause," especially since I think it's only cover for their politics. I care about human rights and making sure everyone has them.

Which is more important?



See, I don't think there are as many oppressors as you do.

Nor do I think that people should take a back seat to talking and solving things because of their skin color, gender, creed, political affiliation, sexuality, gym membership, or the coffee they like. If there is a problem, let's fix it together and figure out who to blame afterwards.



I'm sorry, but this keeps getting more abstract.

What I saw was two groups using violence. One was condemned and the other was not. Both have highly racist members. Both have said and done some despicable things.

Why is the one group that has bigger numbers, much better funding, better political connections called the oppressed and therefore allowed violence without comment?



I don't approve of violence, particularly against bystanders. I said that in the original article.

But if you are going to overlook the violence of one group because they are oppressed, those same standards apply even more against the neo-Nazis. BLM is less oppressed by almost every measure you can name.

You keep excusing BLM and antifa's behavior. I don't. Not because I support the neo-Nazis, but because any excuse for violence is wrong. The fact that many BLM leaders are actively and openly racist and that BLM is constantly involved in violence even without neo-Nazis is enough to tell me that BLM is just another gang demanding tribute. Just as people were wrong to support the KKK in it's heyday, people are wrong to support BLM today.



I'm saying that by the standards that you yourself used, the neo-Nazis are more oppressed than BLM is. Do I agree? No. Do I think that the racism and violence of the neo-Nazis is despicable? Yes. Do I think that the racism and violence of BLM is despicable? Yes.

BLM shouldn't get a free pass. Excusing behavior usually encourages more bad behavior.

In this specific case, I think BLM and antifa came spoiling for a fight and they want moral justification.



Pardon, this conversation was never about white privilege.

It was never about me denying that people are oppressed. It was never about me, period. What we have is two groups that have used violence and racism. Violence and racism are terrible things.

One group gets excused and the other does not.

Yet the bigger group, the better funded group, the group with the better political connections, the group with academic support, blames the other for all the violence and racism **People deliberately excuse them from the consequences.** They get what they want with minimal costs. This leads to further bad behavior. Which is then excused.

I've pointed out that it was good intentions of the FedGov that has kept people trapped in poverty and crime. I can't and won't be responsible for something that happened before I was born. As a libertarian, I won't take responsibility for government failure. Yesterday, today, and tomorrow, that's the history that I can do something about.

It's not about me. It's about the behavior I've seen and experienced.

There's a story about how after the assassination of MLK, Jesse Jackson came out waving a bloody shirt. The shirt didn't belong to Dr. King, it couldn't have given the timing. Yet there was Jackson, waving the shirt, accusing everyone in sight. Because even if they had nothing to do with the shooting, they should have done something. Even if it wasn't possible, they should have done something, faster, louder.

Jackson was aiming to be the new face of civil rights, and unfortunately he mostly succeeded. He turned it into an extortion racket in the 1970s and 1980s. If Jackson said that company X was racially insensitive, the company paid him off and he said the company had mended their ways.

That's how I see BLM, only with more thugs.

In Shelby Steele's White Guilt, he argues that the real problem is not racial oppression but white guilt. There are many people who have gotten power and money exploiting that guilt. I won't be a party to it.

You seem like a nice enough person. You and I are not going to agree on this issue. We can't even agree on what the issue is. I do think your heart is in the right place.

NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.

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NeoNotes — Consider historical context to violence

What is to stop someone else from deciding that it's a good cause to thump you over the head? Once the excuses start, what's to protect you from the politics of the day?

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Results

I don't usually submit my articles to reddit, but I did for This last week in free speech. I cross-posted the article on my politics blog Pagan Vigil and my pagan slice of life blog Technopagan Yearnings.

The libertarian link got hardly any views and quickly moved from the front page to the much deeper.

The pagan link got a couple of hundred views in two days and sparked an interesting conversation.

I was surprised at the insistence on historical and political context for violence. It's also interesting that the article kept moving up and down.

I'm disappointed to see how many people believe that "hate speech isn't free speech" and that certain people don't deserve free speech rights.

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Conspiracy

Here's what we know so far.

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☆ This last week in free speech

This article is cross posted at Pagan Vigil and Technopagan Yearnings. Feel free to repost as long as you credit me and one of those two sites.

Let’s talk about the mess that took over my life this last week. I had a hunch I could be in deep on Friday night when I got some phone calls asking me what libertarians had to do with Charlottesville, Virginia.

Some know I don’t like email and a few have my number. If I had company over or if I had been watching a decent movie, I probably wouldn’t have answered the calls. This was the first I had heard of Charlottesville. I thought at first they were talking about Charlotte, North Carolina. I poked around on the internet and found out about a torchlit protest. Hey, I told folks, they have a right to free speech too. As long as they don’t burn anything down or do any other property damage, it was no skin off my nose.

I didn’t agree with what white nationalists and neo-Nazis stood for, but that is what free speech is all about. They could protest all they wanted as long as they followed the law.

But, all my callers said, it’s hate speech.

So? I replied. I threw out the quote (from me) I had been using for a few months.

I am certainly against Nazism, supremacist groups, and misogyny. I just think they SHOULD be heard, if for no other reason than they can be laughed off the stage.

As loudly and as enthusiastically as we can.
I said that no libertarian would support bigotry. I could see the issues about protecting the statues and I thought that deserved a very public discussion. But the racist chants shouldn’t have anything to do with that. It was two different issues and they shouldn’t be mixed.

After the sixth or so call, the landline and the cell were both quiet. “Nice job,” I thought to myself. Another crisis averted. The folks I talked to would know that libertarians and Libertarians weren’t neo-Nazis or white nationalists. I patted myself on the back.

Then came Saturday. And I got flooded with emails. By Saturday night the phones were ringing.

I should explain. About twelve years back someone at Stormfront discovered Pagan Vigil and decided that I was something I am not. Some of my writings were passed around the internet. Worse, I was quoted out of context. Then some of my stuff was rewritten to make it seem that I supported certain causes and certain ideas. That took forever to mostly fix. But there are pockets left.

Then there was the mess from Florida. Long story short, white nationalists tried to co-opt part of the state Libertarian party. They were kicked out.

But here I was, a libertarian with supposed white nationalist ties. And a (scary? sexy? spooky?) pagan to boot. What did I have to say about vehicular homicide at a neo-Nazi rally?

Free speech is acceptable.

Unprovoked violence is not.

And you’d better be damn careful about “provoked” violence. Especially at a public protest.

People have the right to talk about their beliefs. People don’t have the right to impose those beliefs on others.

If you use force so others will listen, you’re doing it wrong.

All of the above went over pretty well. Here’s what didn’t.

I said that if the neo-Nazis were wrong to use violence first and not in self defense, so were the BLM members, the antifa, and the black bloc who had been doing exactly that for years. If you were a member of the right group, the authorities were mostly looking the other way. Mob violence had become part of American political culture again, and it wasn’t the neo-Nazis or the white nationalists who had made that happen.

Or for that matter, the Christian right, the Republicans, or the libertarians.

Violence was being used to shut down political discussion. What’s more, some groups were claiming moral authority because they had been victimized by American society. No one would be allowed to criticize if the proper groups were involved.

This. Was. Wrong.

This lay the groundwork for tyranny.

As you can imagine, those last five paragraphs did not go over well.

BLM, antifa, and the black bloc weren’t allowed to be guilty no matter what they have done or what they will do.

Anyone who says different is a racist. A fascist.

A Nazi.

And they must not be allowed to speak. At all. Under any circumstances. They must be silenced.

That’s when the pagan stuff started hitting the fan. If a pagan did not IMMEDIATELY drop everything and denounce the neo-Nazis and link them AND ONLY THEM to unprovoked violence, why, they were no better than the Nazis.

And therefore they must not be allowed to speak. At all. Under any circumstances. They must be silenced.

Suddenly free speech was only for the Morally Favored.

This made me angry. Not only was paganism getting dragged into a political situation (AGAIN) that favored progressives, but people were literally talking about Those Who Should Have Free Speech and Those Who MUST NOT BE ALLOWED Free Speech. Violence was ACCEPTABLE against Those Who MUST NOT BE ALLOWED Free Speech. The whole mess was pushing my buttons. I’m afraid I wasn’t always polite about it.

So that was my week. It cropped up again and again. Phone calls, face to face talks, internet discussion boards, and gods, the emails. People couldn’t or wouldn’t accept one simple idea. Take away someone else’s free speech today and you will lose yours tomorrow. Not might, will. The only sure way to protect your free speech is to protect other’s free speech. Even if you don’t like what they are saying.

Especially if you don’t like what they are saying.

Noam Chomsky (of all people) said something very similar.

Goebbels was in favor of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you’re really in favor of free speech, then you’re in favor of freedom of speech for precisely the views you despise. Otherwise, you’re not in favor of free speech.

That’s who I am. That’s where I stand. A right isn’t a right unless the other guy has it too.

     — NeoWayland, pagan philosopher, libertarian, and part time troublemaker

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Martial arts for Middle Eastern women

“The First Self-Defense Studio in the Middle East that Teaches Women to Fight Back”

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Not quite the hate

“Hate Crimes, Hoaxes, and Hyperbole”

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